The 86th Annual Academy Awards: Best Editing

23Jan

Best Editing

In interest of being thorough about the Academy Awards, I’ve decided to dedicate a blog entry for every category. The news media will focus on the top five categories, eventually I will too. These posts are in the interesting of examining all arena of the Oscar race, even those categories that instinctively draw the urge to visit the fridge when they are handed out. Today: Best Editing.

Jay Cassidy, Crispen Struthers and Alan Baumgarten for American Hustle

Christopher Rouse for Captain Phillips

John MacMurphy and Martin Pensa for Dallas Buyers Club

Alfonso Cauron and Mark Sanger for Gravity

Joe Walker for 12 Years a Slave

You may or may not know this, but there’s an unwritten, unprepped tradition at the academy awards that the Best Editing award usually goes to the film that wins Best Picture. Of the 85 films that have won the top award 34 of them have also nabbed gold for editing. There’s always the theory that no one really knows how to define Editing.

Editing is done to provide coherence and continuity. Good editing can make bad production look good and bad editing can turn a good production look bad. With editing, shots are combined in accordance with the script to create finished movie. A shot must be short enough to fulfill the purpose. It should not be too long. Basically, the editor puts the film together like a puzzle, creating a visual orientation in everything from a car chase to a conversation. We look into the visual window our minds must be organized into what we’re looking at.

The five films nominated this year are fine examples of the craft, but let’s be honest, our eye is immediately drawn to Gravity. In creating a room of people, the organization is a little easier to translate, but in the blackness of space, where there is no up or down, getting the visual orientation is a little tougher. That’s why I think that this year’s editing award is going to Alfonso Cuaron and Mark Sanger.

Who Will Win?: Gravity Who Should Win?: Gravity Darkhorse?: Captain Phillips